Parks and Recreation

Of the many reasons to sign on to “The Treaty,” let us start with Leslie Knope. Has our hypercapable yet rather modest deputy director opened an episode so confidently, so forcefully? After crowding the office with the flags of the United Nations’ 193 member states, she explained how attendance at the Model UN event at Pawnee Central High School had been low, and that if she didn’t make it awesome, it would be cancelled. Leslie then looked directly at us, and with a relax-I’ve-got-this smirk, she mock-fretted: “I wonder if I’m going to make it awesome.” (File that one under calm badassery, next to Ron Swanson’s five-word dismissal of a Lowe’s employee.) Moments later, an equally self-possessed Ben stepped up his game, telling the camera: “You know, I didn’t really do Model United Nations in high school, so– oh wait, I SUPER did!”

Our two ex-lovebirdnerds were flying high, ready to make geopolitical problem-solving their bitch, ignoring the fact that this alliance between Denmark (Leslie) and Peru (Ben) was unstable at its core. Just last week, Ben told Leslie that it pained him too much to spend time together, and although they semi-mended fences by the end of the episode, we realized that any friendship would need to be rebuilt very slowly. Yet here they were, chumming it up and exchanging an ill-fated bro shake as they plotted to fix the global food shortage crisis. “Leslie and I aren’t dating anymore, but we’re friends so it’s fun… It’s just fun,” Ben stammered hilariously. “It’s fun.. It’s… fun. It is fun.” (If only Ron weren’t philosophically opposed to super governments and were there to say: “Are you broken?”)